flowers dying all around you
by Ivory Muse
Summary: The fire in your veins is just a joke you tell yourself. — Ozai/Azula.


The steps to the dance are awkward now, several months away making her movements stiff and unwilling— like she's been holding her hands in cold water. But she's done this for a longer time than she wants to admit, and so she peels off her heavy armor and her boots and her tunic and her pants with a mechanical grace, sprawling herself invitingly across the bed once she's through.

Lipstick, tonight. Lipstick and whorls of lacy undergarments, cherry blossom oil dabbed behind her ears, a ruby pendant hanging on her chest that's worth ten years of a peasant's salary. This is her glorious homecoming, after all, she tells her pounding heart.

"I've missed you, my sweet," her father mutters, raking his eyes over the peaks of her breasts and the cradle of her thighs. He throws his shirt aside to reveal his muscular torso, radiating bone-breaking strength from every sinuous motion. "None of the girls in the harem hold a candle to your beauty— or talent." Fluidly, he lies down and begins running his fingers through her loose dark hair; if she were younger, she might even call it tenderness.

"Of course they don't," Azula says with sick pride, pressing her lips into the space between neck and shoulder. She smells saké and opium smoke and cinnamon, familiar but not comforting. "I'm yours, Daddy. I wanted you so badly it _ached_."

He never doubts her, never considers questioning her words— sometimes she wonders if he even thinks her capable of disagreeing with him, or whether he believes they've formed a seamless marriage. His wolf-dog grin burns against her retinas as he brings his hand between her legs, finds the moisture gathering there. "You won't be waiting much longer," he promises, untying the drawstring on his trousers and letting them pool at his feet.

It doesn't hurt at age fourteen the way it did when she was younger— it doesn't hurt. She just stares up at the canopy while he thrusts on top of her, because she's not here, not really, she's conquering Ba Sing Se and the pathetic boy-avatar is getting ready to rain hell on her but she shoots straight through his heart first and he convulses and plummets to the ground and she's smiling behind smoking fingers—

he strokes her clit once twice and the orgasm hits sharp and sudden, a moment of infinite electricity that leaves her panting in the aftermath. A few seconds later he follows suit, a rush of heat and wet, and collapses beside her. She tries to curl away, but his hands are still on her breasts, pinning her.

She doesn't want to come for him, doesn't want to hear the blandishments he strings like pearls. By far she prefers when he simply fucks in and out as if she's a two-copper whore and then lets her go, or even when he bites her neck and leaves bruises all over, to him playing this exhausting little game that involves so much acting, so much enthusiasm from her hollow chest.

(He won't injure her anymore, though, not on purpose. He likes her smooth, unmarked, his china doll. Pretty. Pretty for him.)

(Fuck. Fuck. That's what this is, isn't it? Fuck. Fucking. Fucked in the brain, fucked in the body. Wouldn't Long Feng laugh if he could see her now? _The right to rule is something you are born with_ , and you owe he who bestowed it upon you an unassailable debt. Equivalent exchange.)

"I think you deserve a reward, pet," he gasps. "Anything, for you."

She forces her lips to curve up, her teeth gritted. There are many things she'd like, but none that he is willing to give her. "My travels have been tiring," she murmurs, "and so have Zuko's. A vacation on Ember Island would be very restorative... if my lord father permits it."

His gaze darkens, and she expects a slap, a _no_ — curses the impulsive request. She wants him to be pleased. It's easier when he's pleased. "You've already been gone for months," he finally says, his grip on her breast tightening to the point of pain, "but I'd hate for you to grow overwhelmed. Just the weekend. You can stay with Lo and Li, I suppose."

"Thank you, sir," Azula dutifully recites. It's only been a few weeks, but she needs to get out of here again. She's drowning, suffocating, whenever she enters her—

childhood bedroom (the first time, she knows she must have done _something_ to entice him but she can't remember what)

dressing room (the worst time, her hips still pulse with the memory of his hands burning into her marrow)

marble bathroom (the time she tried to hold her head underwater afterwards until her ribs cracked from the strain and her head went silent)—

he kisses her hard on the mouth, eager to recover what's not yet lost, and she moans to appease him, arches into his touch. She doesn't feel anger or shame or guilt, a languor that would put Mai's best efforts to ruin. She isn't happy or sad about this in the same way a stone isn't happy or sad. Instead, she contemplates what's most definitely real— the weight of her crown as she turns it over with (trembling) fingers, how Zuko is here to serve as a cushion for all of (their) father's punishments, the holy fire spewing from her lungs that makes her (almost) untouchable. Compartmentalize; to create lightning, the spirit must be calm, the chi split perfectly.

(No matter how well she tried to build them, laboring in the burning heat for hours, her sandcastles always crumbled beneath the tides. Back when Daddy was a god above all others, when she and her brother just squabbled over games of _ohajiki_ , when she had begun to shove at the edges of her ability and find them malleable. Mother told her to accept it, rubbed aloe onto her wild-eyed daughter's sunburns with her brow crinkled. _Nothing lasts forever, Azula. Don't be silly.)_

 _(Happy birthday, darling. Ten is already quite grown up, isn't it? Practically a woman. Try on the new yukata I had commissioned for you— I want to see how becoming you look._

 _Love, Dad)_


End file.
